El Peru corre el riesgo de sobrecalentamiento de sus activos debido a la ley que prohibe a los fondos de pensiones a invertir mas de $27 billones en el extranjero. Asi lo dijo la Asociacion Privada del Fondo de Pensiones.
Las pensiones estan sentadas en $5 billones de cash por que no pueden invertir ya que no hay suficientes acciones o instrumentos financieros disponibles en el mercado local.
Es indispensable que se aumente la cantidad que se puede invertir en el extranjero por lo menos al 50%.
Peruvian Asset Prices Risk Overheating on Pension Fund Limit, Flecha Says
By John Quigley - Sep 28, 2010 2:14 PM ET
Peruvian asset prices risk overheating because of a law preventing pension funds from investing more of their $27 billion in assets overseas, Peru’s Private Pension Fund Association said.
Investors including pension funds and mutual funds have $5 billion of cash that hasn’t been invested because there aren’t enough instruments available locally, association president Pedro Flecha said in an interview in Lima yesterday.
Peruvian law bars the South American country’s four private pension funds from investing more than 30 percent of their assets overseas, a limit they want raised to 50 percent as their growth outpaces the expansion of the local capital market. The funds’ assets may increase 85 percent to $50 billion within four years on rising revenue from contributions and profits, according to Profuturo AFP, Peru’s fourth-largest pension fund.
“Raising the limit on overseas investments to at least 50 percent is indispensable,” Flecha said. “If they don’t raise the limit, the local market will overheat further.”
Fourth Increase
Peru’s central bank increased the operating limit on pension funds’ overseas investments to 30 percent this month from 28 percent previously, the fourth increase this year, to help ease gains in the sol. Central bank President Julio Velarde said Sept. 17 he is in favor of Peruvian lawmakers increasing the legal limit above 30 percent.
The sol was little changed at 2.7880 per U.S. dollar at 2:07 p.m. New York time, from 2.7888 yesterday.
Pension funds had 26 percent of their assets invested abroad as of Aug. 31, up from 16 percent a year earlier, according to the Banking and Pension Funds Superintendent.
The funds’ assets are growing by $200 million a month, an amount which can’t be quickly invested locally, said Pedro Grados, who oversees $3.98 billion at Profuturo.
The Andean country’s Congress may increase the legal limit on overseas investments next year, Grados said in an interview in Lima yesterday. Congress will be renewed in July after elections in April.
Apart from moving a greater proportion of their assets overseas, pension funds may put more capital in infrastructure- related investments and private equity funds, Grados said.
“There’s room to increase investment in private equity funds, which we think have a lot of potential,” he said.
Economic growth as high as 8 percent this year is spurring demand for corporate financing and creating new investment opportunities for pension funds, Grados said.
To contact the reporter on this story: John Quigley in Lima at jquigley8@bloomberg.net